


you're living in a bubble

by bodhirookes



Series: Fighting Dragons [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Kiss, High School, Leonard Is Really Grumpy, M/M, Pre-Slash, Schmoop, Underage Drinking, a lot of really bad songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 19:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2479304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodhirookes/pseuds/bodhirookes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pavel celebrates his sixteenth birthday by having a party and getting wasted out of his mind. Leonard is unenthused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're living in a bubble

**Author's Note:**

> I need to just start by saying McKirk is my bae and nothing will ever change that (not even Pon farr!Spirk) and I just love it to pieces. Like wow whenever I watch the movies I see them with their baggage and shitty problems and just want Leonard to pull Jim close after saving the goddamn galaxy and kiss the fuck out of him. 
> 
> This Fighting Dragons!verse is going to be my collection of High School!McKirk and Co. because wow I fucking love this AU to pieces and I'm not even kidding a little. The first fourteen or so fics in the series are set in the gang's junior year of high school, and then the rest are their senior year. This is Jim and Leonard's first kiss, so naturally, the start of the whole ordeal :D
> 
> So I hope you enjoy, and if you like it enough, I've got the College!verse queued right up behind it.
> 
> Title is from Ain't It Fun by Paramore

The night starts off with a bang.

  
Literally.

  
"Ugh," Jim groans, and Leonard doesn't even give him the attention of an eyebrow raise. He just lets the overly dramatic kid drop down next to him on Pavel's couch, lets him jiggle them around, and lets him rest against his side.

  
Instead, he pulls his book closer and grunts in response. It's good enough as a "What, Jim?" without actually being said out loud.

  
Jim lays his blonde-haired head right on Leonard's shoulder and crowds into his space, taking the grunt as the okay to talk.

  
"All I wanted to do was to take a piss." Jim explains with a sigh. "I caught Gaila with some dork's hand down her jeans instead."

  
"That's cute," Leonard replies distractedly. The main character of his book makes a sarcastic remark and he snickers, turning the page. "I heard Gaila was going out with that one guy. Not that I care."

  
His half-hearted attempt to converse makes Jim laugh, and he just snakes his arm through Leonard's and sighs. "I know you don't. But thanks for pretending." 

 

"Mm." Leonard replies, and that should be the end of it.

  
But it's not.

  
_**~.~.~** _

  
Thirty wild, drunken minutes later, Jim and Pavel stumble by Leonard, who is still reading. 

 

"Wendard," Pavel warbles out, and Leonard knows that he's beyond fucked up when the small Russian boy's Ls become Ws. "I wove my party. Why are you reading?"

  
Leonard finally pulls his eyes up from the action going on in his book to look at the two in front of him. Jim and Pavel are swaying to some terrible pop song he's never heard, but he's relieved to see that Pavel is the only one who's drunk; Jim just looks slightly buzzed, his face soft and open. It makes Leonard's heart stumble in his chest and his scowl deepens.

  
"I hate parties, Pavel," Leonard reminds him. "It's just an excuse for these idiots to get wasted and fornicate in random-ass corners of the room. I'm only tolerating it because it's your birthday."

  
"It's my birthday!" Pavel shouts, flapping his arms above his head. Jim has to hold him up so he doesn't fall over, and for whatever reason he finds this endlessly amusing. "Happy Birthday to me!"

  
"Christ." Leonard stands up and holds onto Pavel as the smaller boy whirls around, shouting and jumping like a dweeb. Pretty soon, he'll be throwing up on the carpet and that's all Leonard needs is to spend the night cleaning up someone else's vomit.

  
"Where's Sulu when you need him?" he asks Jim, who is laughing so hard his eyes are watering.

  
"He's just as drunk as Pavel," Jim tells him, and he's so close now that Leonard could kiss him stupid if he wanted to. "He threw back about seven shots of tequila and now he's break-dancing to Devo."

  
That's when Leonard hears the main chorus to _Whip It_ playing throughout Pavel's large house, and he resists the urge to pinch his nose; he can feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. He looks over the sea of heads to find Hikaru doing exactly what Jim had said, his t-shirt tied around his head like a bandana and his limbs falling all over each other in an attempt to break dance. It's so sad an attempt that Leonard could cry.

  
"Jim, take him upstairs." Leonard tells him, avoiding Pavel's hands when they try to rub his cheeks- he's still babbling about finally being sixteen. "I'll get Hikaru and then we're kicking everyone out."

  
Jim nods, sighing fondly at the party's mass, and tells Pavel if he goes upstairs, he'll bring the still-younger boy some cookies. Pavel slurs to him that his favorite flavor is chocwat chip.

  
Leonard pushes through the screaming gatherers around Hikaru and his horrid dancing skills, and goes up to him.

  
"Sulu, get your ass off the ground!" Leonard shouts over Devo. "You're drunk and acting more stupid than usual."

  
"Leonard!" Hikaru shouts fondly, and stands up. He tips over dangerously and so Leonard finds himself with another armful of drunk idiot. "This party rocks!"

  
The taller rolls his eyes and turns to Carol, who is sitting in the chair next to the speakers. She looks entirely too pleased by this situation. She also looks as sober as Leonard.

  
"Carol, cut this music," Leonard yells, and lets Hikaru sing badly along to _A Thousand Miles_ into his ear. "If you can even call it that."

  
Carol laughs and does as she's told, unplugging her iPod from the speakers with a loud crackle. The crowd groans and protests, throwing Chex mix and Mini Muffins at Leonard's head.

  
"Get out, you morons," Leonard shouts. "If I find anyone left when I come back downstairs, I'll cut your dick off and send it to your grandmother in the post."

  
"Christ, Leonard, don't be dramatic," Carol chastises him, but gets to her feet and shepherds everyone towards the door, anyways.

  
Getting Hikaru up the stairs proves to be an even bigger challenge than avoiding Pavel's hands on his face, and the asian won't stop singing that fucking Vanessa Carlton song the entire way. Leonard is tempted to dump him on the landing and just walk out, but he fears that he'll be prosecuted if Hikaru falls down the stairs and breaks something. Also, if Hikaru gets put out of track for the rest of the season, he'll set Leonard's entire Stephen King collection on fire.

  
"Making my way down town-"

  
"Sulu, enough with that song, Jesus H. Christ." Leonard growls, and Hikaru just laughs, because when Leonard calls him Sulu, it means he has a deep and strong love for him.

  
He trips his way into Pavel's room in time to see Pavel sitting on Jim's back, playing with his hair and speaking in fluent Russian. Leonard would ask, but he finds that he really just doesn't want to.

  
"Pavel, get your drunk ass off of him and under the covers. You two are sleeping off this goddamn alcohol if I have to give you a cocktail of Benadryl and chamomile."

  
Pavel rolls gracelessly off of Jim and lands on his back in a heap of giggles, saying something about spoonfuls of sugar and fancy umbrellas.

  
Jim gets off of the bed with his bird's nest hair and a fond grin, letting Leonard deposit Hikaru onto the bed next to his boyfriend.

  
"Pavel, you're not a kid anymore." Hikaru tells him drunkenly, reaching out to tangle up his curls. "We can bang legally."

  
"It was fun when you could get arrested, though," Pavel smiles warmly, and Hikaru huffs out a laugh against Pavel's lips. They fall back onto the pillows together and Jim pulls Leonard out into the hallway when they begin to kiss softly, shutting the light off and closing the door.

  
_**~.~.~** _

  
The downstairs looks like a hurricane swept through and left behind a wave of alcohol and paper plates and Cheetos on the floor.

  
Leonard and Jim can't be bothered to clean it up, so they sit together on the couch again.

  
"We should clean it up," Carol tells them, coming out of the bathroom in her pajamas and her face wiped clean of make-up. Leonard loves her like this: sleepy and plain and absolutely unworried of trying to distance herself from the title of the good girl. Having a father as the school principal has not been a favor for her, and even though they've been in school for two years now, people still get on her for it. "It could be our present to him."

  
Leonard smiles softly, his first of the night. "Tomorrow. Everyone's useless like this."

  
Carol is ready for bed; Hikaru and Pavel are probably kissing and giggling like five-year-olds upstairs; Scotty is passed out on the island in the kitchen, wearing a sombrero and mumbling in his sleep; Uhura and Spock had taken refuge in the Chekov's library around eleven, telling Leonard that they'd gotten enough of the party scene and wanted to go study- code for they'd be making out until they fell asleep, nestled on the loveseat and listening to classical music.

  
And Leonard is sitting on the couch, as he had been only an hour before hand, Jim's knee pressed into his and a book on his lap.

  
Carol nods and ruffles Leonard's hair before heading upstairs to one of the numerous guest rooms in the house.

  
He opens his book as Jim gets up from the couch, heading over to Carol's iPod and flipping through her playlists; he picks the one he made a few months prior, self-titled as "Jim's Bullshit Music" and hits shuffle.

  
Jim flops down next to him again as _I Will Follow You into The Dark_ comes on, soft and soothing and incredibly familiar. Leonard smiles and leans their shoulders together, reading the line under his thumb.

  
He reads through three pages and feels Jim's eyes on his face the entire time. Leonard guesses that he had more alcohol than originally gauged, and lets the boy stare at him as he reads about the climax of the book.

  
They're halfway through _Youth_ by Daughter, Jim's staring insistent and Leonard's cheeks warm, when Leonard feels a hand snake into the hairs by his neck.

  
"Hey, Bones?" Jim whispers in his ear, soft and lovely.

  
Leonard lifts up his head to look at Jim, stomach curling in on itself; Jim's eyes are bright and stunning, and entirely too close, and Leonard's breath catches.

 

"Yeah?" Leonard whispers back.

  
Jim blinks slowly, looking down at Leonard's mouth, and back to his eyes. Leonard's hands have began to shake, and there's no hope that he'll remember what he was just reading.

  
Then Jim smiles, slow and sweet, and says: "I love you so goddamn much."

  
His other hand comes up to cup Leonard's jaw, thumb curling up behind his ear, and Leonard gasps so quietly it's no more than a sigh.

  
"Fucking love you too, you idiot," he replies in kind, and Jim swallows his declaration with a deep kiss.

  
He tastes like frosting and vodka, smells like sweat and cologne, and makes Leonard feel like someone lit a firecracker in his chest and let it sink down into his stomach and rise into his brain. The first gentle sweep of his tongue makes Leonard keen, an inhuman noise falling into Jim's opening mouth, and he presses his fingers into Jim's skin to try and ground himself.

  
It's wonderful and everything Leonard's always wanted.

  
So, naturally, someone busts in and ruins it.

  
_Ain't It Fun_ comes on, and Scotty stumbles out of the kitchen with a shout of joy and a bottle of beer in his hands.

  
The two on the couch break away and watch as their friend stumbles around the living room, waving his drink wildly.

  
"This song's a gift from God," Scotty yells, still drunk. He throws his head about and the sombrero tips to the side, crooked on his head. He somehow managed to squeeze into one of Mrs. Chekov's dresses, one with roses and lilies all over. There's a mysterious red stain on the chest. "Hayley Williams is a classy lass, I'll say."

  
Leonard would be irate, but Jim's got his arms around his back, laughing and still looking so fucking beautiful. So he smiles warmly and and watches as Scotty stumbles about the living room, shaking his ass and singing horribly off-key to Hayley Williams' voice.

  
"Glad you came?" Jim asks him a few moments later.

  
Leonard kisses the corner of his mouth. "No. But it was worth it."

**Author's Note:**

> YAY HIGH SCHOOL MCKIRK WOW I hope that didn't suck too bad and that you'll want to read the rest of the verse :D


End file.
